Airtel & Saavn claimed to have access to user’s data provided by Facebook

An Airtel spokesperson contradicted the statement made by Facebook saying that their access to data ended in 2013. They also stated that the data was being used for internal purposes only.

According to reports by Facebook submitted to the Congress, Bharti Airtel and Saavn are among the companies that could have had access to data of the social media platform. Facebook has named Airtel among firms having integration partnerships with the company. Facebook said in its submission that, “Integration partners were not permitted to use data received through Facebook APIs for independent purposes unrelated to the approved integration without user consent”

The US based company’s partnership with Airtel no longer exists according to the information shared by the company. An Airtel spokesperson said that, “The matter pertains to the year 2010 when Airtel was granted access to data by Facebook as an app developer. The project ended in 2013 and so did the access to the data. We confirm that the data was used only for our internal purposes. We take data privacy extremely seriously and follow a zero-tolerance policy on the same.”

Reliance Jio’s partner music app Saavn was one of the names that have access to users’ friend’s data based on privacy setting of the friend. Only after the friend’s consent, the data could be collected by the third party application. The huge social media firm had stated in April 2014 that they’ve decided to strengthen the rules on its platform to prevent abuse. The company had stated that they made clear to the existing apps that they would have a year to transition. The statement added that those apps would be forced to migrate to more restricted API and be subject to Facebook’s new review and approval protocols. A majority of companies were required to make the changes by May 2015 Facebook added. Saavn was among those companies.

Reportedly, Saavn didn’t reply immediately to a query sent to them. According to reports submitted by the US based firm to the Congress, Airtel and Saavn were allowed access to user’s data even after 2015 while they were exempted from using it. Reports further added that Saavn was given a one-year deadline to make sure that their API’s were complaint with Facebook’s policy.

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